Ultriva’s Scott Stickles Moving beyond a Pilot Electronic Kanban Project

According to Scott Stickles, an Ultriva consultative implementation expert, “I believe one of the major hurdles of moving from a pilot to an enterprise solution is the funding.  Usually this is a whole new level of bureaucracy.  This now involves a higher level of sign off for capital expenditure and also typically gets the IT department involved.  At this point we normally involve integration into the existing environment and the IT department will review the proposal.  Our job is to make sure they understand the lean environment and what is required to make the electronic kanban work.  Expanding to the entire supply chain is usually less difficult.  It is another sales discussion to prove to more users the benefits of the system.”

According to Narayan Laksham, CEO of Ultriva, (www.ultriva.com), “We design lean manufacturing software and solutions that drive lean processes across the supply chain, from suppliers to customers.” Ultriva's flagship product, Ultriva Electronic Kanban, eliminates stock-outs while reducing inventory levels up to 75 percent. Ultriva Lean Scheduling complements demand-driven replenishment strategies by optimizing production schedules in real time around the most variable customer demand. Ultriva Supplier Replenishment extends the replenishment capabilities of Kanban to include schedule-based replenishment, discrete POs, min/max, consignment and VMI (vendor-managed inventory) replenishment methods. Ultriva's products are in use in more than 100 plants worldwide, incorporating more than 4,000 suppliers, transacting over one billion dollars of inventory and reducing manufacturing costs for industry leaders such as AGCO, Emerson, Ingersoll-Rand, McKesson, Rexnord, and Timken.

Stickles also noted that what prompts an Ultriva electronic kanban implementation is, “A change in the existing environment prompts change in status quo.  This could be many things.  The most typical is change in the customer’s profit margin.  This drives them to look internally at their processes.  Secondly, is that they need to expand upon their ability to drive lean through their environment.  From my experience about 90% of the customer installs have a lean initiative before we were involved.  I would qualify this though by saying this is to varied degrees.  The companies that were a little further on their lean journey have a better success rate.”

The most common installation starts with involvement with a Material Manager, yet Stickles found that when Ultriva can involve individuals at a higher level, such as corporate level, the project sustainability and portability has a higher success rate.

Stickles felt his most successful Ultriva implementation to date include Hearth and Home and McKesson.  Stickles said, “They were the most successful because they were the most willing to move along the lean path.  I believe the best opportunity for Ultriva’s growth is manufacturing businesses or other repetitive replenishment businesses that are either in a position of using lean to turn around their company in this economic state or those that are trying to increase their profit margin understanding the economy is turning.”

Ultriva

www.ultriva.com

Cindy McGowan

pr@ultriva.com

408.248.9803